


interminglings mild

by Poose



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Class Differences, Established Relationship, Infidelity, Light Bondage, M/M, Shame Edward Little Power Hour, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/pseuds/Poose
Summary: My small contribution to the 'banging and healing by the seaside' that this fandom does so  very, very well.
Relationships: Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	interminglings mild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vigilantejam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantejam/gifts).



> Edward is married to a lady, should that not sit right with you.

He takes the early train down from Waterloo. Jopson saves up all his precious half-days for this, a red-letter occasion that comes but once a year. Twice, if fortune will grant them an iron with which to cleave open a precious wedge of companionship. Time he may snatch from the Admiralty, his career, that grand Lancashire estate he now calls home. 

Jopson takes care of the particulars. Has done since their inaugural visit, when Edward, God keep him safe, was given over to believe he had let an entire residence for them. Nothing grand, which went a long way towards explaining why the cost had not been dear. And he, bless him, being entirely unacquainted with the cost of private rooms in seaside towns, whether let for a sojourn or a spell, had been utterly bewildered when they located the address. A boarding house, respectable if shabby, where they had walked three flights up and through a door badly-hung to find their situation was but a small parlour and a bedroom, rather musty, in which were two beds stretched over with drum-tight chintz and a cold-water tub on the landing - the _shared_ landing. 

Edward had looked thoroughly rotten, and it was a damned shame to see him bear it. Some men suit melancholy, though, and while Jopson had shuddered on the inside he took it all in stride, resolving his own countenance into good cheer and swinging Edward's fine case up onto the luggage rack before placing his own battered satchel onto the bed, with its shiny coverlet, nearest the door.

 _Oh_ Edward shook himself into the present, away from obvious disappointment _oh I apologise. I would have lifted it for you._

Jopson had brushed this remark off like so much lint. _The situation is very fine_ he said, making at once for the windows, pulling back the curtains and then, with an effort, unsticking the sashes. It was not entirely a falsehood. They were but a few steps from the shoreline, upwind of the pier. Close enough for the sea to breathe her fresh air into the room as the windows groaned open. This task accomplished, and he winded by it, he stepped forward to take Edward's hands in his own. _Besides, we have always known how to make do in a tight situation, have we not?_

 _Are you certain?_ Edward took in the wretched little bedroom with one long, glancing sweep, and looked utterly dismayed. He was forlorn until Jopson resolved his sullen humour with kisses and then some. 

Today he walks from the station to a little place set off the main thoroughfare. Downwind but fine enough in spring. The landlady passes his the keys through the gate of her cottage which resembles their own. Unremarkable but tidy. The pavement swept clean, fresh whitewash on the stoop. No coin changes hands: the balance has been settled a decade in advance. Nine times they have stopped here. Three years remain on the lease. The pine-scented air is said to help a man convalesce. Only recently have respectable, nay, _fashionable_ people begun to settle here. Before that it was all smugglers' coves and shirkers; barren heath and bogland. 

Edward prefers to remain ignorant as to what kind of creature this woman is. Jopson would count himself fortunate to be a fraction as credulous as he, for he has kept tally of her. Particulars, relations, what gin-houses she favours — this last intelligence divulged by a neighbour girl who had gone quite cow-eyed when he showed his dimples — which he keeps in a latched, locked box beneath his bed. It snuggles up next to Commander Little's letters, these stretching back to his lieutenant days, when Jopson had been ill, here, by the seaside. Peacetime had kept Edward poorly, despite his own relative good health, but his inevitable promotion came when war, inevitable also, had. 

Terse, lumbering things, but by God, how Jopson treasured them! As if they were the finest verse writ in his own steady hand.

The keys press close against his thigh through his pocket as he seats himself in the café closest the station. He sits with his back to the door but as close to the windows as the custom makes possible. Today is a Tuesday, in that unsettled hour between breakfast and tea. Save for an elderly couple seated alongside him, whose relative deafness renders their idle conversation nearly as loud as coal-fired engine, the place is empty. Jopson looks at his watch more often than he does his paper. The quarter hour he waits seems as long as a dog watch, and his heart lurches only once in false anticipation to see a snatch of naval blue in his eyeline. But that man is tow-headed, and not stout or tall enough to be his Edward. 

He is not much given over to easy smiles, but the one that at last greets him through the wavered glass window is worth, Jopson decides, every single lost Sunday. 

On the way they stop to buy apples, beer, cheese. He picks it all out; Edward pays for it. 

Edward’s letters lack what his person does not. Jopson is dizzy for the want of him, even at a remove. 

They cast open windows. Edward unpacks his case. They need very little, here, with only the two of them present and accounted for. 

They take a walk, first thing, and they find a place on a bench, where they are sat together close enough to one another to share the apples, the beer, the cheese, but not, it goes without thinking, near enough to give any chance passerby cause to wonder. They can pass for relations well enough, Jopson thinks, though not close ones. Cousins, perhaps, on Edward's mother's side, though his hair has reddened from his days in the sun. His skin is more burnished than a proper gentleman's should be, shot through with freckles. It makes Jopson feel quite pale in comparison. 

The first night passes with the lights extinguished and both the shutters and the drapes pulled to. Edward is obliging, and Jopson has waited quite long enough to be thus obliged. 

The second day they walk, mostly in silence, until one of them remembers the duration since they laid hands on one another, after which they bustle their way back in haste. 

They buy eggs, sausages, brandy for their tea. Edward takes great pride in being able to make an omelette in the French manner and makes a show of flipping it onto a plate. They build a small, smoky fire. Outside, a hint of rain freshens the breeze. 

That second night Commander Little begs of him to grant that which neither steward nor wife can well provide. The task comes easily to Jopson; it is in the asking where Edward often falters. 

Scarcely a hardship.

Jopson handles these particulars as well. Sturdy bedposts are infinitely more dear to him than anything, when it comes down to it. He can visit the seaside any time, of a Sunday. Ramsgate, Brighton. Save this little stretch of coast, which is for them and them alone. As for Edward? Why he spends the greater part of his life on board a ship; he hardly lacks for sea air. 

He retains his knots. His hands, once they have mastered a thing, will remember it always. 

Edward's neck will cord and strain no matter how gently he proceeds, this he well knows from long acquaintance. Better to proceed without delay and close the distance quickly. 

One knot comes loose from the bedpost with an easy flick and Jopson shifts into position between his legs, Edward’s damp left ankle gripped firm in his hand. Beneath them the floorboards creak at which Edward seizes up — excruciating, and at exactly the wrong moment — and Jopson soothes _it’s all right Sir there’s none here but ourselves_ whereby Edward unclenches enough for Jopson to set a measured pace until he stills into rigidity once more. 

Jopson searches for due cause. 

_Edward_ he says, and pushes himself up onto one forearm to ensure that all is well. 

_Tom_ he says in return. His face is warm beneath Jopson's hand, his skin pink enough to hide the freckles. _Tom it’s too much_. 

_I’ve got you, Sir._ Jopson cradles the back of his head with one hand, with the other digs hard into the sweaty space behind his sharply-bent knee with his fingers. There’s barely enough nail there to bite but Jopson twists them all the same. _Let it out, Sir_ he says, in a tone that brooks no argument, and reaches between them to undo the fifth binding, a bit of linen, more decorative than functional, for all it does. A quick tug; a tickle, and Edward chokes out his pleasure straightaway . If a sweeter sound exists throughout the realm entire he would take some convincing to believe it. 

A skill once learned, like a task, is rarely to be forgotten. 

Edward will fall asleep even with his arms in knots, spent, with sweat on his shoulders and between his legs. Jopson will kiss the edge of his mouth and imagine that he can discern there another smile, rare as a pearl. 

Home he must go, after this. Back to the only daughter of a good-tempered gentleman with land enough to satisfy a son-in-law. He has gazed upon her portrait, in stolen moments when Edward sleeps, after he has folded up his trousers and hung up his coat. Edward keeps it in his waistcoat pocket, staunchly refusing to entrust such a treasure to the vagaries of his luggage. For Edward's sake, God keep him, Jopson hopes they cherish one another. 

One more sunrise remains before they must disperse. Jopson cannot, by virtue of law and common decency, share in Edward's burdens, yet he will strive in utmost to ease as them as best he might. There is time enough to oblige one another a few times more before the conductor blows his whistle and the train carries him away from this place. 

Until the next year, then. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Wordsworth's ["By the Seaside." ](https://internetpoem.com/william-wordsworth/by-the-seaside-poem/)
> 
> Back on my bullshit, apparently. On Tumblr [@pitcherplant](https://pitcherplant.tumblr.com/)


End file.
